He’s since played a fundamental role in signing the likes of Mesut Ozil and Alexis Sanchez although his time at the club has also been pockmarked by a number of high-profile failures in the transfer market, including the botched attempt to sign Luis Suarez.

Back in May, Law, a lawyer, Fifa-licensed agent and an accomplished linguist, explained what his role entails:

“The area that I manage is called football operations. My job is to help the CEO and manager, in conjunction with the contract team, with squad planning, contract negotiations, negotiations with agents, player transfers, either in or out of the club, and coordination with the Arsenal academy.

“I work very closely with our chief financial officer, our general counsel (the lawyer for the club) and our club secretary in the contract team. Our biggest challenge is to make sure that all the contracts are done right and we follow all the rules set by the FA and FIFA.”

Law’s departure leaves a void in the legal team even though Arsenal recruited Huss Fahmy from Team Sky cycling in June to work on player contracts. The report claims that Ivan Gazidis has now taken an office at London Colney and it’s suggested he could have a more hands on role with the day-to-day football operation.

Best of luck to Dick. He’s apparently a very popular figure at the club, we wish him well for the future.

Remember it was Dein who introduced Kronke to the board! Dein is not the knight in shining armour that he always seems to be protrayed, but a guy who made lots money buying shares then selling off firstly to Danny Fiszman (who then sold his shares to Kronke) and then Usmanov.

At times it seemed Dick was nowhere to be found when we really needed him to come through. He seemed to be in Costa Rica for a decade in search of Joel Campbell. At other times, Dick seemed to be to in your face, which some found offputting. Dick was always a hard negotiator and we probably should have been able to get Suarez for that 40 million plus 1 offer. It remains to seen who replace him with, and while I currently think we can do much better, it could turn out we miss ole in your face hard Dick once he is no longer around

I obviously don’t know everything about his job, but I think it’s fair to criticize Dick Law for things like price negotiation (selling players at a lower price or buying players at a higher price than we could get for them) but as far as failure to sign players or our general cluelessness in transfer windows go, that’s more on the club than on him. Unless I am wrong and he has a much bigger role deciding our budget and how much we are willing to pay for any player, the poor chap probably just follows instructions. I mean, if the other club won’t accept our offer and the decision makers at the club refuse to up it, there’s only so much he can do.

Even player price isn’t decided by him, but by Wenger. Like all negotiators, Wenger gives him a compromised price, and ideal price, and the walk away price, and leaves it to him to negotiate, but it’s well known that Wenger sets the price of players (a good example being Ornstein pointing out that Wenger set the prices for Gibbs and Perez).

Thank goodness. He has been disappointing as of late and we have lost out on targets and failed to act quickly in terms of contract renewals in certain cases. Our transfer and scouting team are said not to be rated in europe. Revamp the club from top to bottom.

Tbh, I think people are just making him a scapegoat. He just does what he’s told to do, but it seems people are now blaming him for lack of signings.

We have a small negotiation team because that’s how Wenger likes it (possibly the smallest negotiations team of all the top clubs). Heck, if it weren’t for Gazidis forcing his hand, our medical team would’ve remained small too, as that’s how Wenger initially wanted it; no changes to that, much like his coaching team.

So by all intention and purposes, his role was as a diminished DoF in all but name.

I think the problem with the DoF role is that it simply requires more authority and power to make decision, power that Wenger will give up over his cold, dead body.

Now it doesn’t mean DoF being more powerful than the GM (although in truth, it really should, overall),but unless that fundamental balance isn’t changed somehow, or at less made equal, any replacement will just be another Dick Law-in disguise.

Based on all the crap one hears about this bloke it couldn’t happen soon enough. I was hoping he’d be one of the first to go during the so called catalyst for change this summer. Beyyer late than never though.

Agree. Think all the stuff about him being popular important etc is designed to fit with the arsenal in crisis narrative. Frankly, I struggle to see how our negotiations could be handled any worse both incoming and outgoing. In saying that, im not convinced our structure will let his replacement do much better.

Arsenal need to plan for life without Wenger now and this opening is the perfect opportunity to bring in an intelligent ex-player or football executive into the DoF/GM role required at a modern club. Key thing here is the candidate has to be connected and I’m really not fussed if they don’t have any Arsenal connections. We need the best man/woman for the job. Ivan needs to concentrate on being the CEO, he has no business being at the training ground.

This is the man who scouted Gilberto, managed to bring Ozil and Alexis into the club, also Koscielny.

Too many people like to believe red herrings fed by the media.

The Ozil transfer in particular was a bit of a coup.

…remember contrary to some opinion there are 7 or 8 clubs who can afford as much as Arsenal in transfer market or more.

Some of those clubs had similar requirement.

Waiting to end of window was mostly bc of the Bale saga at Madrid but also helped wean off some of the potential competitors by that stage.

Unfortunately it had impact on a Higuain bid as Wenger and Law had to keep money ready for the Ozil bid if it went higher bc of a competitor.

Law has also been lampooned for his wild chase in the jungle for Campbell but in truth, considering the price paid (and despite sporadic feature, Campbell was a very decent buy for us.

Sure there were mistakes along the way and we may be able to find a better negotiator but all in all, it is too easy to be suckered into the caricature of Law painted by the ‘crisis’ manufacturing media.

Moses! The CEO of a club need not be on the training ground?Where and what should he be doing? The Chelsea owner started visiting the training ground last season after we beat Chelsea 3:0 , we saw the result immediately. Most people still do not know that the problem with Arsenal is poor training by Wenger and not the players.Proof? It is very simple. All cticisms ,weaknesses in the team 8-9 years ago are still there but the players of those period are all gone ! The players we have now are internationals and ex -internationals ,World Cup , and Continental Cup winners,but Arsenal shows no improvement in the League and Champions League.It is even worse now than when critics said we were playing with ‘boys ‘because we couldn’t qualify for Champions League last season.
Former Arsenal captains , Vieira, Henry and Gallas spoke at different fora last season rated the training regime in Arsenal as inferior to that of Mourinho and Pep Guadiola . Henry played for Pep at Barcelona while Vieira and Gallas played for Mourinho at Inter and Chelsea respectively.That is the crux of the matter .
Arsenal cannot regain her past glory if Wenger remains as he is now clueless.Gazadis at the training ground cannot solve the problems that has origins in Wenger himself and they are many. These include bad team and squad management, inability to read matches, favoritism that makes him bench better players to enable inferior players to play,mental laziness that makes him not to do SWOT analysis of opposing teams before matches among other shortcomings. SWOT analysis simply identifies the Strength and Weakness of the other team vis- a- vis your own Opprtunity to outwit them and the Threat which the opponents may pose due to your own weaknesses. That’s why Watford and Crystal Palace ,not to talk of other top six teams beat us last season .Arsenal players are very good but lack good management to bring out the best in them consistently.Big Sam of Crystal Palace said this much last season when Arsenal lost 0-3 .He said they knew how Arsenal would play and trained towards exploiting the space at our defense because Wenger normally tells his full backs to join the attack thereby creating wide spaces to counter attack . What Big Sam did was the SWOT analysis of Arsenal FC.That’s the hallmark of a modern “digital” coach/ manager as opposed to the analogous one with tactical rigidity due to cluelessness. An astute manager would have changed the way Arsenal was playing and shut Crystal Palace out but no it’s the same way.Wenger is always glued to his chair watching other managers using the technical area to pass instructions to their players.
Arsenal will never get out of mediocrity of over a decade no matter the caliber of players brought to Arsenal if Wenger remains the manager.
Mark my words.

Tactical rigidity due to cluelessness. I don’t know maybe I’m wrong but Pep seemed rather tactically rigid and it was praised as big team mentality because big teams IMPOSE their game on the opposition. Maybe I’m just grasping at straws

I marvel at most fans comment about Dick Law leaving Arsenal . I am not surprised at all that he is leaving .Wenger the power monger has been frustrating his efforts without anybody calling him to order. Wenger usually shut out players Dick Law has hands in bringing to Arsenal .Podolski,Joe Campbell and the last prominent one Lucas Perez.That was why Perez went to complain to Dick Law when he was being denied games.See Wenger’s comment on Perez after the F. A Cup.
“He’s a top quality striker but I couldn’t give him the games he wants and deserves l confess that. I feel a bit sorry for him”
You deny ‘a top quality striker ‘games because you are not the one that called him on phone like Welbeck and Ozil on last transfer days ? That is Wenger for you! Perez was allowed only 950 minutes play in all competitions but scored 7 goals with 6 assists! Wenger wants him out at all cost. We all saw the hardwork and defensive ability of Joe Campbell two seasons ago ,he has been sent on another loan. Podolski would score for Arsenal ,but was usually benched for matches so he had to leave..The trend is on , an accomplished striker in Lacazert was bought to strengthen the team .He scored on his debut but was benched against Liverpool by Wenger ! The reason given by Wenger when people expressed anger was that he wants him to adjust to Premier League football.How does Lacazert adjust to Premier League football when he is not allowed to play ? Ozil, Nasri ,Kolshieny never sat on the bench for any game when they came to Arsenal .Why? The reason is that it was Wenger that single handedly brought them to Arsenal.
People don’t realize that the problem in Arsenal is Wenger , not Dick Law or Gazardis as many people believe. I laugh when people say Arsene loves the Club .Wenger ,if he loves the club will play the best players in his to win matches and not those he singlehandedly brought in. He would not cling tenaciously to his position even when he knows that he is not achieving desired goals because he “is scared of retirement ” according to him .
Let supporters beam their searchlight on Wenger and his performance for the past 7-8 years dispassionately and stop attacking the wrong persons for Arsenal woes.
Dick Law, go well as you leave the rudderless ship where a single person,Wenger is more powerful than the owner and the Board.

Good riddance to bad rubbish; i wonder if it’s true, as we all know like every rumor about arsenal it’s always that “a roumour”
Won’t be surprised if this was leaked to help fans believe they should expect the promised changes and that things would be done differently next window.

They’ve been known to do things like these when they need to ticket renewals